The Esquire 21: David Kelley

WHAT OF THE GENESIS MOMENT, THE FLASH OF CREATION, the birth of the great idea? The epiphany, when the mental blocks fall and the synapses fire perfect arcs over the mossy gates of the mind? When Thomas Edison kicks back his chair and cries aloud--by Jove, by Christ--he's got it?

It's not like that.

"I've seen thousands and thousands of little eurekas," says forty-eight-year-old Stanford product-design professor David Kelley. "But it's that group eureka that does it, where one person builds on another's idea, in the cracks between normal ways of thinking, and together you come up with something." This is the discipline of chaos embraced by Kelley. This is the approach--blurting crazy notions to a group of trusted fellows from wildly different fields--that has made him an Edison of our age. This is why his Palo Alto--based company, IDEO, raked in $50 million last year. This is why IDEO is one of the largest product-design firms in the world. You have seen its work: The first Apple mouse. The mechanical whale in Free Willy. The Crest Neat Squeeze toothpaste tube. The elegant Palm V handheld organizer. More than four thousand products for a goodly portion of the Fortune 500: General Motors, Kodak, Xerox, Motorola, Nike, Pepsi, and more.

And so, for a glimpse into the kind of future that the fertile minds of IDEO might imagine, Esquire asked them for one idea. The carlike electric pod you see on these pages is the result--a tiny living-and-working-and-transport device that's as much portable cubicle as automobile.

It's all probably a ways off, sure. But someone's got to dream it before anyone can do it, no?

What of the genesis moment, then, the flash of creation, the birth of the great idea? People like David Kelley, they think and they study; they reject, they accept, they modify. They dream and doodle like boys in grade school. "That's what we do all day long," Kelley says. They draw pictures of the future. --TED ALLEN

Kelley's Smart Car was born in a brainstorming session at IDEO, a place where no idea is stupid, even if it is stupid, because it could contain a kernel of brilliance.

• The pod has an extendable chassis that allows quick conversion from sports car to pickup to minivan.

• Rooftop solar cell provides supplemental power for electric motor; extra motors can easily be added for more power as needed.

• Antenna and scanner for on-road communications via satellite and car-to-car transmissions. (You could, for example, point your antenna at the car you want to communicate with and say, "You in the red pod: Please get the hell out of the left lane.")

• Data-docking and power port for exchanging information between onboard computers, recharging motors, downloading satellite data, running diagnostics. In a "smart highway" scenario, could link physically with other cars, allowing you to work in teams while moving.

• Looping video cameras fore and aft record data on mishaps and provide a record of highway pull-overs.

• When the pod is parked, the steering column gives way to a workstation, fully equipped with all the communication power of any office. "People are working in ad hoc groups all the time," Kelley explains. "You form a community with other pods to work on a project; it might be at home, on the beach, under a shady tree. Then you reconfigure it with a different group of people. It's the mobile worker."

• Task-specific trunk modules with separate, customizable containers for the gym, the business trip, or the beach. Each fits perfectly in the trunk and maximizes available space. Because for all the blather about paperless this and virtual that, Kelley says, "the world is more physical than that. We like stuff."

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